Ultima

OK Chess variant in which most pieces move like queens but capture in different ways.

Better than Chess but extremely obscured and almost forgotten. I have developed a VBA application with AI. It is a good game for those who are bored with Chess and want to try something equally complex but not adventure-themed.

There was a period after I read Abbott's book when I really wanted to explore Ultima as an alternative to Chess, but I didn't have a Chess partner at the time, much less someone ready to get serious about a weird made-up game with wacky made-up pieces. Years later, ChessV is always up for a game and I find it's a tactical Chess-like abstract with fairly low initial clarity. Endgames are especially bewildering, with the value of pieces changing dramatically as the ranks thin out. Ultima is unlikely to challenge Chess as a worldwide abstract, but not something I'd be less willing to play.

Way too furious to be a chess variant - pawns move like rooks, all other pieces move like queens, one of them freezes all pieces adjacent to it and each piece has its own way to capture (sandwiching a piece, moving away from it, leaping over it, simply taking it, making it lie on a corner of a rectangle with the king being another... or any of them by using the "chameleon piece").

Bob Abbott had stated that two defensive Ultima players could spend an eternity moving here and there without anything happening. This might be true, but as soon as one player throws down the gauntlet the game becomes a relentless barrage that really does make chess look like chinese checkers.

Excellent game and truly pleasure to play!